Abstract

Patients with diabetes have a higher risk of severe infection and mortality due to COVID-19. Considering the current limited effective pharmacological treatments, vaccination remains one of the most effective means to control the pandemic. The current study aimed to determine the prevalence of COVID-19 infection and the rate of COVID-19 vaccination coverage among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. The patients were identified from a diabetes hospital registry at Prince Sultan Military Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in July 2021. The history of COVID-19 infection and the vaccination status were retrieved from the National Health Electronic Surveillance Network (HESN) program and the Seha platform, respectively. A total of 11,573 patients were included in this study (representing 99.5% of all patients in the registry). A total of 1981 patients (17.1%) had a history of confirmed COVID-19 infection. The rate of vaccination with a 1st dose was 84.8% (n = 9811), while the rate of full vaccination with the 2nd dose was 55.5% (n = 6422). The analysis showed that a higher proportion of male patients were fully vaccinated than female patients (61.0% versus 51.2%, p < 0.001). There were statistically significant differences among the age groups, with the full vaccination rate ranging from 59.0% for the 61–70-year-old age group to 49.0% for the > 80-year-old age group (p < 0.001). The patients with no previous history of COVID-19 infection were more likely to get fully vaccinated than those with a previous history of the infection (63.9% versus 14.6%, respectively, p < 0.001). The factors associated with a higher likelihood of unvaccinated status included the female gender (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 1.705 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.528–1.902)), elderly patients in the age group of 61–70 (aOR (95% CI) = 1.390 (1.102–1.753)), the age group of 71–80 (aOR (95% CI) = 1.924 (1.499–2.470)) and the age group of >80 (aOR (95% CI) = 3.081 (2.252–4.214), and prior history of COVID-19 infection (aOR (95% CI) = 2.501 (2.223–2.813)). In conclusion, a considerable proportion of patients with type 2 diabetes had confirmed COVID-19 infection. Continued targeted efforts are needed to accelerate vaccination coverage rates among patients with diabetes in general and the particular subgroups identified in this study.

Highlights

  • The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has affected all countries globally in many aspects of life since the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2) was identified in December 2019 and the subsequent global spread of this highly contagious virus [1,2,3]

  • The aims of this study were to determine the prevalence of COVID-19 infection among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and to determine the rate of COVID-19 vaccination coverage among these patients using a large hospital-based diabetes registry of more than 11,500 patients with diabetes with a history of infection and vaccination status retrieved from unified national databases/platforms

  • A total of 11,573 patients with type 2 diabetes with complete identification data in the hospital-based diabetes registry were included in this study

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Summary

Introduction

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has affected all countries globally in many aspects of life since the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2) was identified in December 2019 and the subsequent global spread of this highly contagious virus [1,2,3]. The basic reproduction number (R0 ) for COVID-19 was estimated to be in the range of 1.4 to 2.5, [2,8,9,10] with some studies reporting higher R0 (e.g., >6) during outbreaks in some areas or regions of the world [11,12]. This variability in the R0 estimates is due to several factors, including the model used for its estimation, public health interventions to control the pandemic, level of implementation of precautionary measures (e.g., travel restrictions, social distancing), and population size/density [12,13,14].

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